


they all go into the dark

by bluebeholder



Series: One and the Same [3]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: (not anders), (yay for the Circles am I right), Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Chantry Boom, Tranquil Mages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23093671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Late Spring, 9:37 DragonIt turns out that "happily ever after" is difficult to come by when you're in love with a revolutionary. After fleeing Kirkwall, Fenris finds himself wandering the Wounded Coast with Anders, uncertain of where to go next. A chance encounter in the forest sets them on a new path, and gives them the opportunity to start building a new and stronger bond.
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age)
Series: One and the Same [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654444
Comments: 13
Kudos: 82





	they all go into the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the start of what I'm fondly calling The Great Apostate Road Trip! 
> 
> If you're not into OCs, this is your chance to back out. From here on forward, the cast of OCs will just keep growing, taking on a very prominent role in the story. But if that's your jam? You'll hopefully enjoy. :)
> 
> This is a pretty angsty story, but I promise that most of them won't be quite this downhearted. <3

Two weeks.

Fenris has kept count, slicing notches in a small wooden rod so he doesn’t lose all track of time. It happens, when on the run, that time gets strange. He’d like to know what day it is.

As a result, he’s vividly aware of the fortnight that has passed since he fled Kirkwall with Anders on his heels. At the time, it had been a giddy and hopeful flight, buoyed up by Anders’ unexpected survival and the thrill of affections returned. They’d stood hand in hand with their backs to the burning city and looked north to freedom together.

By now, though, reality has set in.

The monsoon season has begun. Storms batter the Wounded Coast, sending fog and rain far inland, and when it isn’t raining, the damp is persistent enough that Fenris still feels drenched. With Templars converging on Kirkwall, bent on hunting down every escaped apostate, they can’t go openly or by main roads, meaning that their travel is slowed. Two separate squads of Templars have stumbled upon them. The second time, Anders and Fenris barely made it out of the fight alive. There are just as many shades, spiders, and bandits haunting the roads as ever, which means their supply of lyrium and healing potions is running low.

Worse, the initial spark between them has begun to fade into resentment.

Fenris can’t clear the image of the burning Chantry from his mind. He has to bite back bitter retorts whenever Anders mentions future plans—to go to the Circle at Ostwick and incite further chaos, or to turn back on themselves and make for the College of Enchanters in Cumberland—because it all seems so far-fetched and ridiculous.

At the end of the day, what had that dramatic piece of destruction done except bring more wrath down on the very people Anders claimed to want to help?

Now they’re on the run together, alone, with no allies, at constant risk on all sides, with not a workable plan in sight. Fenris can’t claim that he’s faultless, as he’d led the way out of Kirkwall, but the reason they had to run in the first place was driven by Anders. Bitterness keeps growing. Anders certainly notices, and their conversations turn snappish, angry.

Their days have descended into stony silence.

Today, they make their way along a deer trail, paralleling the main road at about a hundred yards away. A bank of fog rolled in before dawn and shows no signs of clearing, leaving Fenris’ armor starred with rolling droplets of water, and making the thin carpet of ferns and grass under his feet soft with dew. Anders follows him, several paces behind, silent save for the sound of his heavier tread. Even Libertas, carried on Anders’ arm in her covered basket, is quiet.

No matter the reason, they agree that they ought to head for Ostwick. It’s the nearest city to Kirkwall, where they can resupply and see the situation at large. If Fenris judges the distance correctly, they’re only another day’s travel from the city’s outskirts—by dusk, they should be in the city, and able to take a room at an inn, with a proper roof overhead and a good bed and a roaring fire. What he wouldn’t _give_ for a fire, at this point. They haven’t had a campfire for the last week, partly so they’re not seen and partly because everything is too _wet_ to burn. The cold and wet makes Fenris feel stiff, makes his lyrium feel uncomfortable.

He’s dwelling on this when, up ahead, Fenris hears sounds of moving in the trees. He stops and holds up his hand, peering through the fog. He can’t see more than ten feet ahead.

Anders steps up close behind him. “Deer?” he murmurs.

“Perhaps,” Fenris says. He draws his sword, in the name of caution, and calls out, “Who’s there?”

The noises stop abruptly, and then…a stifled sob. A child’s cry.

“We’re no threat!” Anders pushes forward, a little past Fenris. He cranes his neck, trying to see ahead. “Come out!”

Out of the fog fade three robed and cloaked figures, one carrying a staff. One is tiny and slender—a child, certainly. As they close with Anders and Fenris, Fenris makes out more of their features. A tall human woman with a serene expression and a sunburst brand on her forehead, a small girl holding the Tranquil woman by the hand, and an elf with a staff held at the ready in her hand.

“Put down your sword,” the elf says, eyes wide as she takes in the two men standing in front of her. Her hands tremble on her staff. The tip glows.

Slowly, Fenris lowers his sword. “We mean no harm,” he says.

“Where are you from?” Anders asks.

The elf exchanges a look with the Tranquil woman. “Tell them,” the Tranquil says, smooth and quiet. She pats the child’s head, not quite perfunctory, but without any true emotion behind it.

“Ostwick Circle,” the elf says. “Things are—bad—there. Alina and I took Lea and ran.”

“We came from Kirkwall,” Anders says.

The child, who must be Lea, looks up at him, rubbing her red eyes. “Where the demons are?”

Anders flinches a little. “…yes,” he says. “That’s why Fenris and I left.”

Letting her staff rest, the elf offers her hand. “Brithari,” she says.

Anders shakes her hand, while Fenris sheathes his sword. “Anders,” he says.

Brithari pulls back like he shocked her. “ _You_.”

Oh.

“I see word got out,” Anders says softly. His head bows a little, and despite his frustration Fenris feels a pang on Anders’ behalf. He’d been so hopeful that other mages would see the necessity of what he did, and to be faced with this…

“Word reached us a few days ago,” Alina says. Her expressionless eyes survey them both, soft voice almost soothing as she speaks. “Many mages in Ostwick were waiting for a spark like Kirkwall’s.”

Brithari’s voice shakes. “Alina means _she_ was waiting,” she says.

Fenris feels a cold that isn’t from the fog. “What did you do?” he asks Alina.

Alina doesn’t smile. Of course she doesn’t. Fenris can’t keep his gaze from drifting up to the brand on her forehead as she speaks. “I did what I believed to be necessary,” she says. “I smashed the phylacteries of half the mages in Ostwick before I was caught. They attempted to make an example of me. It worked, but not as the Templars hoped. It seems that many mages in our former Circle see me as an example of what will happen to mages who do not resist. They revolted. Brithari and I departed before the Templars could regain control.”

“We took Lea when we left,” Brithari says, looking down at the child. “One of the templars—he was dangerous to girls and had his eye on Lea.”

Lea sniffles, wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’d have been brave,” she says defiantly, and the childish steel in her voice makes Fenris smile.

“I’m sure you would have,” he says. He kneels down on the muddy ferns, offering her a hand. “My name is Fenris.”

She shakes, small hand clammy with cold, before withdrawing her hand into the long sleeves of her robe. “Where are you from?” she asks, looking over him. He must look very alien to a child raised in the Circle, he supposes.

“A long way from here,” Fenris says. Overhead, he hears soft conversation between Anders, Alina, and Brithari. Frustrated as he is with Anders, Fenris trusts him to manage this. He keeps his attention on Lea. “Have you traveled far?”

“I’ve never been away from Ostwick,” Lea says. She glances from side to side, at the mist-shrouded trees. “I didn’t know there were this many trees in the whole world.”

“There are a great deal many more than this,” Fenris says. He has to suppress a smile; even in such dire circumstances, a child's wonder remains charming to witness. 

“I wonder if we’ll see them all.” Lea looks at him, gaze far too serious for so young a child. “We don’t know where we’re going. Alina says we just have to walk.”

Fenris considers Lea’s words. They’re carrying no supplies, and seem to have only Brithari’s magic for defense. “I need to speak to him,” Fenris says, gesturing at Anders. “Pardon me.”

He rises and nudges Anders in the side, giving a meaningful look several steps away. Anders hands over his pack to Alina, offering what supplies are inside, before stepping aside with Fenris. They stand just off the path and out of earshot, if they speak quietly. “We can’t abandon them.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Fenris says.

Anders gives him a surprised look. “I didn’t think you’d want to help with this. You’ve been very bitter about everything so far.”

Fenris folds his arms. He can’t stop the angry words: “Helping stranded people in need is a far cry from _setting fire to a city_.”

“We _know_ the explosion hurt almost no one.”

“You incited every mage in the city to fight,” Fenris snaps. “Blood magic, demon summoning…”

“Which, as _you yourself_ told me, would have likely happened anyway if Meredith had her way,” Anders replies, equally sharp. “It wasn’t all my fault.”

“Fasta vass, mage, enough of it is! And now we have no plan, no destination, save for your harebrained idea to go cause _more_ chaos!”

“That’s not our plan anymore, though, is it?” Anders demands, gesturing at the three other mages. Fenris glances at him—they are not at all subtly watching the fight. “We help them, we _both_ get what we want! I can protect people, you don’t have to _do_ anything but stand on the sidelines like you _always do_.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Fenris says, ignoring the bait. “I’ve had enough of this. If a child’s life wasn’t at stake…”

Anders takes a step forward, the corners of his eyes crackling blue. “ _Then what_ , Fenris?”

Fenris snarls, hands in fists, lyrium flaring. “I would walk away from you right now.”

“You…” Anders trails off. He looks _gutted_ , as if Fenris reached inside him and pulled out his organs. Fenris should know. He’s been on the receiving end of this sort of look often enough in battle.

He doesn’t speak, because he didn’t _mean_ what he said, but the words are _out_ , the product of a fortnight of frustration and fear, and he can’t take them back. So Fenris stands there, watching the blue glow fade from Anders’ eyes. Anders swallows hard, gives him a jerky nod, and turns back to the trail.

“Let’s go,” he says to the other mages, ignoring Fenris thoroughly.

For the rest of the day, Fenris trails behind the others. Anders carries on a quiet conversation with the adults, while Lea stumbles on in obstinate silence, only murmuring quiet thanks when she trips over roots and Fenris picks her up to put her on her feet again. For the entire day, Anders doesn’t look at Fenris a single time.

They make a camp just outside of Ostwick, in a disused shed long since abandoned. The living conditions remind Fenris bitterly of the days after he first fled Tevinter. There’s a part of him that wants to speak of it to Anders, but Anders _still_ won’t look at him, save a brief glance spared when Fenris announces that he will go into Ostwick to find some supplies.

“Blankets,” Alina says, “food, and a dagger for me, if possible.”

Fenris raises his brows at her. “A dagger?”

“I may no longer be able to cast spells, but it is unreasonable for me to go completely unarmed,” she says. Her voice is toneless and posture serene, but Fenris feels as if he’s been challenged anyway.

“As you wish,” he says.

Brithari tries to press some of their limited coin on him, but Fenris declines. He brought a fair amount of his mercenary fortune, gathered over years with Hawke, with him; he’ll pay out of that for supplies. The trip into Ostwick, carried out with the hood of his cloak pulled low over his head, is uneventful. He returns with the required supplies in good time, and Alina serenely offers to prepare dinner over a fire Anders somehow managed to start on damp wood just outside their shed.

While Alina works, chopping the sausage, turnips, and celeriac for stew, Brithari sits with Lea, Brithari telling some story or another while Lea pets Libertas, the cat allowed out to wander the shed. For the moment, all is well. Fenris decides it’s time to talk to Anders.

He sits down beside Anders outside the shed, where Anders keeps watch, staff lying across his lap. “ _What_ ,” Anders says, without looking at Fenris.

“I’m sorry,” Fenris says.

The tension between them doesn’t vanish, but it does…relax. “Apology accepted,” Anders says. He tips his head back to rest against the wall of the shed with a soft thud. “I…guessed you were just angry. And you’ve every right to be. I’ve behaved like an ass.”

“You have,” Fenris says. “Apology accepted.”

For a minute or two, they sit side by side in silence. The night air is cold, but the fog has cleared, which makes it bearable. Fenris listens to the late-evening city sounds, the noises hinting that people are going home, sleeping. The bells of a distant Chantry toll the hour.

“Anders,” Fenris says at last, “ _even if_ I agreed with your plans, we are two men against the might of the whole Chantry, with no allies.”

“You’re right,” Anders says. He sighs. “I really broke things with that explosion, didn’t I.”

“You _did_ remove the chance of compromise,” Fenris says lightly, with a shrug.

Anders’ hand curls around Fenris’, heedless of the cold metal and spikes of Fenris’ gauntlet. “Are you teasing me?” he asks, warmth in his voice that hasn’t been there in days.

“It’s difficult _not_ to tease you,” Fenris says, turning his head to look sideways at Anders with a very faint smile.

“You,” Anders informs him, “are terrible.”

Fenris keeps watching, though he can’t make out any of Anders’ features in the dark. “Your job now is to continue what you started,” he says. “You told me that before you left Kirkwall. I do not believe that continuing it requires you to spark more fighting. The rebellion seems to be running itself now, if Alina is any indication.”

“True.”

“Do you know, even when we were not friends, I admired your clinic,” Fenris says, lifting Anders’ hand to his lips and kissing the back. “You _helped_ people. Built a place of healing and salvation. You ran the Mage Underground. You _led_ people.”

Anders turns his hand over, cupping Fenris’ cheek carefully. Intimacy between them is still so fragile, Fenris reflects. They’ve had so little time for it, since fleeing Kirkwall, and less inspiration than time. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“If you think I am advising you to lead lost mages, yes,” Fenris says. “Turn to your strengths, Anders. Help people. It is…the just thing to do.”

“Ridiculous elf,” Anders says, soft and fond. He leans sideways, his head coming to rest on Fenris’ armored shoulder. “So where do we go, then?”

“I will purchase more supplies tomorrow,” Fenris says, “and a mule to carry it all.”

Anders nods. “Then north, I think,” he says. “Get off the coast, away from Kirkwall, where no one will be looking. From there…we can think further ahead.”

Fenris turns and kisses the top of Anders’ head. “Yes,” he says. “And…I will be there. I promise.”


End file.
